Walls

02

Suresh Batra loved his coffee black. He did not understand why the lady at Starbucks often looked at him quizzically when he went for options that had no milk in them. Him being born Indian does not always mean he liked everything with milk.

He smiled politely at the woman and collected his coffee. His eyes were puffy and red behind thick-rimmed glasses. He pushed them further up his nose and walked out of Starbucks, headed towards the tallest building in the whole of Angelora.

The streets were busy with morning traffic. Suresh was not happy that most faces looked fresh while he smelled like expired perfume. He had not left his chair at his workstation for three days and had only had 20-minute power naps every six hours for the past week.

He felt like crap, and for once, he was happy that it showed. People did not bother him that way.

When he stepped through the glass doors to the lounge of Acute Inc, the sheer emptiness of the building mocked him. Everyone else was on leave, and here he was, working day and night.

His boss had declared the day a holiday for all Acute Inc employees on account of his engagement to his fiancee. But Suresh was an exception. He was happy to forgo the holiday to work. Not because work appealed to him, but the payment did. Also, the air conditioning beat the heck out of his tiny apartment with the broken-down cooler.

But the only caveat was that he was actually supposed to work.

He flopped onto the leather chair at his workstation and flipped towards the large monitor on the desk. The screen was divided into 18 tiny boxes with security footage from around the building running in each of them.

He was promoted as head of security just last week. His parents had swelled with pride when he told them.

He had expected that he got to stare at monitors all day long and bully the other security guys into doing the same all day long as well. But the position actually meant a whole different job.

He clicked through his screen to bring up another window. It was a satellite image with 25 dots marking the position of 25 individuals.

Everything was going as intended, and none of the dots showed alarming activity. Except for two - they were deactivated.

He was supposed to run emergency protocol in an hour if they don't turn back on. He checked his phone. His boss hadn't called.

Which could mean only one thing - something was wrong.

Maybe it could cost his job if he worked around the protocol. But he had enough faith in his boss to make the decision.

He picked his phone and dialed a number he hadn't dialed in years.

********************

05:59:06

05:59:05

05:59:04

Abbie did not remember what the heck this timer was for. Was it to remind her of an appointment with her dentist? She could remember that she had booked one to take her wisdom teeth out.

But the other messages on the phone were making her heart gallop. Why was someone calling her Agent 23? And what the heck did they activate?

Abbie took a deep breath - maybe this was a prank.

She stretched to her full height to scan her surroundings. They were in a little clearing with tall trees lining three sides. On the remaining side was a tall cliff towering over them. She could make out a broken fence at the top. She guessed there was a road behind it.